On January 23, 2012, a same-sex couple, individually and on behalf of their three adopted children, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, against the State of Michigan. The case proceeded under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and began by challenging the Michigan law ...
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On January 23, 2012, a same-sex couple, individually and on behalf of their three adopted children, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, against the State of Michigan. The case proceeded under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and began by challenging the Michigan law preventing adoption by unmarried parents. The plaintiffs, represented by private counsel (including a professor at Wayne State law school), asked the court for both declaratory and injunctive relief. Specifically, the plaintiffs asked the court to declare that the provisions of MCL 710.24, which prohibits second parent adoptions by unmarried persons, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Accordingly, the plaintiffs argued, the court should prohibit judges in Michigan from blocking second-parent adoptions based on the unmarried status of the couple.

The case was assigned to Judge Bernard Friedman. News reports recount that on August 29, 2012, at a hearing on the State's motion to dismiss, he encouraged the plaintiffs to broaden their case to challenge, as well, the Michigan Marriage Amendment, which prohibits same-sex couples from marrying. Mich. Const. 1963, art. 1, § 25. He gave them 10 days to decide whether to file an amended complaint addressing this issue. They did file such an amended complaint on September 7, 2012, adding a claim that under the federal Constitution, the state must permit the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

On September 24, 2012, Judge Friedman granted the formal motion to amend, and then denied pending motions to dismiss and for summary judgment as moot. The state renewed its motion to dismiss, but the District Court denied it on July 1, 2013, based on the Supreme Court's decision the prior week in United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. 12 (2013). Both plaintiffs and defendants then filed motions for summary judgment.

In his opinion denying the motions on October 16, 2013, Judge Friedman explained that the State was proposing several justifications in support of Michigan's exclusive recognition of heterosexual marriages: "(1) providing children with 'biologically connected' role models of both genders that are necessary to foster healthy psychological development; (2) forestalling the unintended consequences that would result from the redefinition of marriage; (3) tradition or morality; and (4) promoting the transition of 'naturally procreative relationships into stable unions.'" These depended on facts that needed to be presented and contested at trial, he held.

The trial occurred over 8 days in February and March 2014. On Friday, March 21, 2014, Judge Friedman ruled for the plaintiffs, finding that the Michigan Marriage Amendment violated the federal Equal Protection Clause, and entering an injunction against the ban on same-sex marriage. 973 F.Supp.2d 757.

The state immediately sought a stay in the Sixth Circuit. Because Judge Friedman's order was docketed after 5 pm on Friday, it appears that the state's county clerks offices were already closed. Several county clerks' offices (Washtenaw, Ingham, Oakland, Muskegon) were open and issuing marriage licenses on Saturday, March 22; the statutory three-day waiting period is frequently waived in Michigan, and was waived by some county clerks' offices. The first wedding took place at 8 am, in Ingham County. The district court's injunction was stayed that afternoon by the 6th Circuit; the motions panel soon extended the stay to last until the case is resolved on appeal. However, on March 28, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the federal government would recognize the marriages that took place on March 22.

The defendants appealed to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on May 9th, 2014. On November 6, 2014, the Sixth Circuit ruled on this and other cases from four states. Obergefell v. Hodges (PB-OH-0003 in this Clearinghouse). Henry v. Hodges (PB-OH-0004 in this Clearinghouse). Love v. Beshear (PB-KY-0001 in this Clearinghouse). Tanco v. Haslam (PB-TN-0005 in this Clearinghouse). It was unwilling to find a Constitutional basis to deny states' authority to define marriage. On the Due Process and Equal Protection claims raised in this case, the court found that it was bound by Supreme Court precedent in Baker v. Nelson, 191 N.W.2d 185 (Minn. 1971), which it found not overruled by Windsor nor by "doctrinal developments". It found that the bans were plausibly rational, and neither in violation of the Constitution nor due to illegal animus or discrimination. It also held that "[i]f it is constitutional for a State to define marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, it is also constitutional for the State to stand by that definition with respect to couples married in other States or countries." (DeBoer v. Snyder Page p. 38). Accordingly, the Sixth Circuit upheld the same-sex marriage bans in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee. 772 F.3d 388.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari review of all the 6th Circuit cases on Jan. 16, 2015. Bourke v. Beshear, 135 S. Ct. 1041 (2015). The Court rephrased the questions presented as: 1) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license marriage between two people of the same sex? 2) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?

On June 26, 2015, the Court reversed, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy. The right to marry is fundamental, the Court held, and it demeans gay and lesbian couples to deprive them of access to marriage. The 14th Amendment therefore does not allow states to ban same-sex marriage. Kennedy was joined without further writing by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor. Each of the four dissenters--Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito--wrote a dissent.